TORONTO - It was a high-stakes proposal that nabbed him a fiancee and turned him into a bit of an Internet star.

But it wasn't fame Scott Wetton was after when he secretly boarded an Air Canada flight from Calgary to Toronto on Dec. 16 to pop the question to his unsuspecting girlfriend as she flew home for the holidays.

"We started our relationship at long distance," Wetton, 26, said in an interview from his hometown of Toronto, where he is visiting family.

"We were constantly on planes flying back and forth ... so I thought it'd be a fun surprise for her."

The proposal — which was captured in a video posted on YouTube — took three months of planning and included false itineraries, an extra seat on the flight, a secret bag drop-off and a fake delay to allow Wetton to get on the plane with a little help from Air Canada staff.

Just after takeoff, Wetton took a deep breath, got on the intercom and hoped for the best.

"I know you don't like surprises, but I wanted this to be special," Wetton says in the video.

"Jacqueline, you're the love of my life and I wanted this to be as special as possible. I guess there's just one more question to ask."

When he made his way to his girlfriend's seat at the front of the plane to finish the proposal, he had his answer — laughing and crying, Jacqueline Poushay said yes.

Poushay said that while the couple, who met at Dalhousie University in Halifax but now live together in Calgary, had talked about marriage, she had no idea when or how it would happen.

"Like you can see in the video I was pretty surprised, but what you can't see is that I start to slide down in my seat," she said from her parent's home in Sydney, N.S.

"I'm not really the type of person that's the centre of attention all the time and I started to get kind of embarrassed."

She knew he would propose the minute she heard his voice, Poushay said.

"There was no other reason for him to be on the plane."

And when it was all said and done, she was so happy with the proposal that any shyness disappeared.

Wetton had one final surprise planned — when they finally arrived in Sydney, both their families were there to congratulate them.

While the elaborate proposal is getting Wetton some grief from friends, who jokingly complain about being to match his exploits, Poushay said he's unlikely to have done things any other way.

"You can ask anyone that has known him, he does everything 100 per cent," said Poushay.

"This is a very Scott-like proposal."

The couple, who has been together for about three years, plans to get married in Cape Breton in 2013.

An Air Canada spokeswoman said the airline was happy to help and wished the couple all the best.

It's not the first time the airline has played Cupid — staff also helped a passenger on a Montreal-Vancouver flight earlier this summer.

In that case, the Montreal man wanted to have an announcement made asking his Alberta girlfriend to marry him when flying over the middle of Canada.